Push notification services are in widespread use for sending messages to various computing devices, including mobile devices. For example, a push notification may be sent from an email server to a user's mobile device to notify the user of receipt of a new email message. Push services can reduce the required work of a mobile device by relieving the mobile device of the need to continuously check for new email or other new messages from remote servers.
A downside of push messaging is that a mobile device must be awake, i.e., powered up, in order to receive new messages. By delivering messages unprompted, a messaging server may repeatedly wake up a device, thus draining its battery power.